The blog contains articles by the author which appear in various newspapers in Kashmir and are also available on the website: www.kashmirfirst.com

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Flood prevention Hakeem Suyya way!

(In view of the failure of
the government to implement various flood prevention measures especially
dredging and strengthening of river banks, someone has to become a Hakeem Suyya
to save Srinagar!)

The popular minister of the famous Kashmiri King Avanti Varman, Hakeem
Suyya, is still remembered everywhere as a Messiah who saved Kashmir from the
ravages of flooded Jhelum and prevented famines. His story used to be in the
history books prescribed in Schools in forties and fifties. One does not know
if the feat of this famous and popular man is still in the present school text
books. However, there is an everlasting tribute to him in the name of the town
Sopore which is a later version of the original Suyya Pur, town established by
the able minister.

The story about Suyya in Kashmiri Pandit Network website is given as, “Once the country was in the cruel clutches of a great
monster-famine. Everybody was grieved. The king was helpless and no plan could
be devised to mitigate the suffering. But then God sent an angel in the form of
a man Suyya. His birth was unknown. When a baby he had been left in an earthen
pot covered with a lid which a Candala woman picked up while sweeping. Her name
was Suyya. She gave it to a Sudra for rearing up. The baby grew up into an
intelligent boy and acquired some education. He became a teacher. He was
generally surrounded by a crowd of sensible men. When the people complained of
Famine, he told them that he could get rid of this monster provided he had the
means. The king summoned him but he didn't reveal his scheme. The people
thought him mad but the king kept the treasury at his disposal. Suyya took many
pots, full of money, in a boat and went towards Madavarajya, the southern
district of the valley. He threw some of money at a village called Nandaka
(Nandi on the Veshan river), meaning `the place of money', which was submerged
with flood water and then quickly came back. Then he went to Yakshadara
(Dyara-gul, meaning `the place of money', near Khadanyar below Baramulla) and
threw lot of money into the river. Everyone except the king thought that he had
gone crazy. But the famished people who had watched Suyya throwing money in the
water, immediately jumped into the river to find the coins and thereby clear
the bed of rocks which had rolled down from the hill side and blocked the
river. Consequently the water flowed down.Previously the Jhelum and the Sindh
met near Trigam turning large areas into a swamp. But Suyya regulated the
course of the river so that the water flowed right into the Wular Lake. The
tributaries also were directed usefully. Suyya had many villages reclaimed by
having circular embankments raised all round them to keep out the water so that
they looked like round bowls (kunda). As a result of these projects hundreds of
villages were reclaimed and crop grew unprecedentedly. One kharwar of paddy
which used to sell for 200 dinars in prosperous times-now was sold for 36
dinars. Suyya built the present town of Sopur on the bank of the river Jhelum
in his name. He prohibited killing of fish and water-fowl in the Wular Lake. He
granted the village Suyya a Kundala to the Brahmins in honour of his mother
Suyya and constructed the bund Suyya-setir after her name”.

Well, we may
not find a Suyya in present times but one could follow his example to save the
population from the ravages of the flood. One does not have to go with bagful
of gold coins and throw in the River to dredge it. There are more sophisticated
means available now which could be bought against the present gold coins!
Unfortunately, the expenders of the gold coins want to keep some for themselves
which slows down dredging and strengthening of embankments. There is a way to
follow Suyya’s example! People need lot of sand and earth for construction
which is going at a breakneck speed all over the valley. The government has
only to announce that people in need of sand and earth can take it free on
their own from the River and the flood channel. Only areas and depths to which
they can go have to be demarcated. Dredging and removal of sand will take place
at break-neck speed.

However, the
embankments would need to be strengthened. Even this work can be done by the
people on their own. One wonders why the leaders of the “Popular Movement” are
not stepping in and starting something like Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt and Khadi movement.
They could motivate people to work out wonders on the environmental front
including the salvaging of fast disappearing water bodies. If the people start
such works on their own the government would have no justification to stop
these and would rather be put in an embarrassing situation. This may force them
to take to initiate all requisite technical steps at an accelerated pace. In
any case, there are no two opinions that unless fool-proof flood prevention
measures are taken on a war footing, Kashmir may be in for another disaster
soon. Even God Almighty may not help us at that time because of our refusal to
learn from our past mistakes!